


Imaginary

by scarslikeconstxllations



Series: The Miraculous Ladybug Collection [11]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien is a demon pretty much, Adrien is imaginary, Alternate Universe, Alya is mentioned, Anxiety, Canon Divergence, Demons, Depression, F/M, Imaginary Friend, Kissing, Lucid dreams, Marinette is going crazy, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Other characters are MIA, Romance, Sabine and Tom are mentioned, Schizophrenia, Sensuality, Therapists, Therapy, adrienette - Freeform, can I even say this is a ship fic, censored sensuality, darker tone, maybe triggering, mentions of suicide/self harm, she's just a doctor though calm down, single mention of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 14:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16746181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarslikeconstxllations/pseuds/scarslikeconstxllations
Summary: Marinette Dupain-Cheng struggles with visions of the imaginary friend that's haunted her for twenty-three years. Her therapist tells her that he's all in her head, but the things they do together convince her further and further that he's real.





	Imaginary

**Author's Note:**

> A.n. So this was a piece I wrote for the Ladyblog on the official Miraculous Amino. :) The only warnings I have for this fic are mentions of suicide. Just read the tags and stay off the front lawn with your argumentative comments.

 

 

* * *

“How are you feeling today, Marinette?”

“Fine.”

“Are you seeing him anymore?”

“Only in my dreams.”

_It was a lie, of course. It always was._

Every single appointment was the same. The 23-year-old woman would sit in her therapist’s office that smelled of incense and cheap candies to talk about the infamous ‘him’ that had been infecting her mind since she was a meagre child. ‘He’ was Adrien Agreste, or so he had introduced himself to be. It didn’t matter, really, because he was all in her head.

Adrien was an imaginary friend.

It’s often seen as normal for a small child to have an imaginary friend. Usually, those children grow out of it by the time they get older. With Marinette, this was not the case. No, while every other child was playing hopscotch or tag with their friends, Marinette was talking to Adrien.

They used to play games, too. They did everything that normal friends would, except for one considerable difference. No one else could see Adrien except Marinette.

She was picked on, a lot. Everyone thought she was weird. They thought she was strange. And most of all, they thought she was crazy. She had made a single friend in all of her 23 years of existence, and she had been distancing herself from that friend for a long time.

She didn’t believe that she deserved to interact with anyone else. She was a freak. She knew her parents were disappointed, but she couldn’t do anything to ease their minds. Their only daughter whom they’d had such high hopes for was driving herself into insanity.

No, that was wrong. He was driving her into insanity, not herself. But then again, he wasn’t necessarily real. This left conflicting emotions in her mind. Who was to blame? Could she even rightly place the blame on someone who didn’t exist?

Hands pressed gently into her shoulders, massaging there lightly. When she felt his breath on the shell of her ear, she flinched.

“Tell her I like her scarf, sweetheart,” he whispered tenderly in her ear. His voice was luxuriously smooth. It reminded Marinette of warm honey. It always had a way of touching every nerve in her body and setting it aflame.

Adrien didn’t really like Dr Laura’s scarf, that much she knew, and he most certainly knew she wasn’t going to announce his presence to the doctor. She stiffened under the gentle caresses of his hands, and the change in posture didn’t go unnoticed by the doctor.

“Marinette, is everything okay?” Dr Laura asked in concern. “You look tense all of the sudden.”

Ever the observationalist was she. Marinette clenched her teeth, gritting them together as Adrien’s hands delicately moved across the skin of her exposed shoulders. “I’m just fine, doc.” Another lie.

If Dr Laura noticed, she didn’t say any more on it. “Is there anything, in particular, you would like to discuss for the remainder of your appointment?” she asked.

“No!” Marinette said, a bit too loudly, as Adrien’s hands moved lower to wrap around her waist. “I mean, I’m all set if that’s okay.”

“We should do something special later,” Adrien purred in her ear once more, “just the two of us.”

The sickly sweet tone of his voice was almost enough to give her cavities. It was always just the two of them, and he knew this much. Squaring her shoulders, Marinette stood. She was leaving, one way or another, with or without the doctor’s blessing.

“Well, I’d say today’s session was a success,” Dr Laura said with a plastic smile. “You may go, Marinette. Remember to sign out and don’t forget to take your meds.”

“Yeah. Thanks, doctor.” She wasn’t thankful, but it didn’t matter.

“Of course. Have a good day!”

She didn’t say it back.

Heading out into the cold was a blessing. The chilly winter air always felt like a cleansing for her skin. Winter was her favourite season. Everything died in winter, even the stars. It was the epitome of death. The trees lost their colourful leaves, the sky lost its cheery blue hue, the grass lost its bright green liveliness. Things died in the winter and were reborn in the spring.

Marinette hated the spring.

It was a time for rebirth, something that not everything had the luxury of experiencing. Often times, she desperately wished she could be reborn herself. She wished she could simply fade from her life and become nothing more than a distant, insignificant memory. She wished she could be reborn as something else, perhaps a bird. Birds were free to fly wherever they wanted. Sometimes she felt like a caged bird with clipped wings, desperately wanting to fly. Even if she escaped the cage, she would lack the wings to take flight.

Walking back to her apartment in the cold was refreshing, but her fragile limbs didn’t usually appreciate it. Her lungs gratefully took in the fresh, crisp air, and she imagined that she was light enough to just float away. Then he spoke again, and her world shattered into reality once more.

“You didn’t tell her that I liked her scarf,” Adrien said with a frown, but his voice had a teasing lithe. At her lack of response, he grew agitated for real. “Are you ignoring me now?” he asked softly. “What did I do wrong, mon chéri?”

His honeysuckle words wouldn’t sway her, she promised herself within her head. But he was inside her mind, inside and out, all the time. A cheerful grin overtook his features when he noted her inner turmoil.

“Come on, my sweet, talk to me.”

When she finally did speak, it was without the malice that she had been intending. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Adrien frowned once more. “I want attention. I like when you pay attention to me. I /feed/ off of your attention. You know, this, princess.”

The nicknames never ceased. Each day he had something new, but his favourites were, “sweetheart,” “mon chéri,” and, “princess.” Each one caused a fresh wound on her already abused heart. One would think, had he been real and not a figment of her imagination, that he was a gentle lover.

But he wasn’t even real, so it didn’t matter.

Her hands shook, so she balled them into fists by her side. Quickening her pace was futile because he was like her shadow. Wherever she went, he followed. Wherever she longed to be, he longed to be with a ferocious intensity.

“Oh sweetheart, don’t cry.”

She didn’t even know she was crying until she felt the tears freeze on her face. Teeth chattering and fingers trembling, she reached up to wipe them away. She would be fine. She always was. Or at least, that’s what he often convinced her.

When she reached her complex, she hurriedly fished out her key. Her shaking hands struggled to put the key in the lock, and Adrien hummed quietly behind her. When she finally got it open, she nearly sighed in relief. It was harder to ignore Adrien when they were alone, but she at least wouldn’t have people looking at her like she was crazy. Well, she was crazy. But they didn’t have to know that. She didn’t want them to know that.

Her apartment was small, and in no way homey. It lacked a personal touch, laying barren of decorations or photographs. But it was hers, and that was enough for her. Well, theirs anyway.

It wasn’t until hours later that the madness truly struck.

She stood in front of the mirror, her hair dripping wet from a shower. Her skin was still damp, a sheen of water coating the pale flesh. She shook with rage at her reflection.

“Look at you, you’re disgusting.”

Her reflection was never responsive. It simply grinned at her in that stupid, dirty mirror, that stupid smile on its face.

“Did you hear me? You’re disgusting. A bag of flesh and bones. Pale, scrawny, ugly. That’s all you are and all you’ll ever be.”

Her words held no real malice. She simply sounded . . . empty. When she gazed into the dirty glass, something inhuman stared at her. Wide, doe-like, eyes were sunken into its head. At one point in her life, she was certain that they had been blue, but now they were a ghastly black. The whites of its irises were nearly insignificant compared to the two black holes standing out against its face. Messy black curls hung next to its sharp cheekbones, just barely touching the skin of its shoulders. Pale lips were pulled into a snarl, sharp white teeth poking out underneath.

Her body trembled as she wrapped her hands around its throat, with the intent to teach it a lesson. Before she could do any damage, arms wrapped around her waist from behind. Her reflection hissed in discontent as she was forced to turn away from it.

Adrien smiled, the darkness of the room casting horrifying shadows over his face. He was pale, too pale, paler than she was. Green eyes that resembled the summer grasses stood out against the sharp features of his face. His teeth were also sharp, incredibly so. They looked as if they were ready to burst from his mouth and devour the nearest living thing. But Marinette knew he wouldn’t dare do more than give a few gentle bites. He needed her to survive, after all.

“It’s getting late, chère, shouldn’t you be off to bed?”

She never slept, and he knew this, of course. He always taunted her with the idea of sleep. To her, sleep was a dream that she didn’t have the luxury of affording. Most nights, she lay awake, staring at the shadows crawling along her ceiling. He sometimes liked to stay up there, in the corner of the room, where he could watch her. He looked scarier up there, with black eyes and a sinister grin that glowed white in the darkness. But occasionally he would lay with her, his cold hands caressing her soft skin as her brain decayed slowly within her mind. Eventually, she would lose consciousness, passing out from sheer exhaustion. He was usually there to hold her then, as she left the world of the living for a few hours.

She never dreamt.

Each time she lost her sense of awareness, it was the same occurrence. She would be wandering through a foggy town, white smoke swirling around her. But there were no buildings or people, only tall gravestones and skeleton-like trees. They reached out to grab her, and then she would run. She could run for a long, long time, away from an unseen beast, until the bony arms wrapped around her and constricted her movement. They would suffocate her, and the last thing she would see was a sinister grin and two black eyes.

Needless to say, she never looked forward to ‘sleep.’ If she could even call it that.

Forcing a smile onto her lips, Marinette nodded at Adrien. He let out a contented purr, a strange sound that rumbled his chest from time to time. It was often soothing, so she had never once made a comment about it. She went with it as she did with everything else.

As she was laid gently on her bed, hands caressed her skin momentarily. She kept her eyes open, wanting to see where he decided to spend the remainder of the night. A hand wound into her hair, another wrapped around her waist. Her body was pulled taut against his, her right leg lifting up to rest along his side. He enjoyed holding her this way. It was more soothing for him that it was for her, but as long as he was happy she didn’t have much to worry about.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered, cool breath causing goosebumps to splay across her neck and chest.

Sleep wouldn’t come easily, it never did, but she did as she was told. The hands continued to caress her, continued to stroke her hair, as the light flickered off inside her mind.

 

 

* * *

_She was floating._

_Her body lay in a horizontal state, level with the sky. Her hair hung low, the only thing about her that was succumbing to gravity. The lace, white fabric she adorned billowed around her like a ghost, swaying back and forth._

_All was silent until she opened her eyes. They were black, dripping with a charcoal ink. Irises and pupils alike were void. She was blind, but she didn’t need to see there. She could feel where she was, see it in her mind._

_White smoke stretched on for miles. Before she knew it, she was pressed into the frozen earth, her pale limbs released from their invisible hold. Rising to her feet, she began the walk. The wind rushed by her ears, a low whisper. Voices too quiet to decipher flittered here and there, speaking in dozens of languages, none of which she knew. Somewhere in the distance, she thought she heard a crow caw._

_Gravestones crawled higher and higher around her, reaching towards the grey sky. They towered over her small, ghostly frame like skyscrapers, but she still continued to walk. Not a tremble left her body as she made her way along. It was always the same, it was expected._

_When she heard the first growl, she started to run._

_She never knew what was chasing her. It could have been a beast, a terrible, frightening beast. It could have been a wolf, an animal familiar to her. It could have been Adrien in his true form. For all she knew, it could have likely been herself. But her instincts screamed at her to run, and so she did._

_She ran through the trees, whose arms stretched out to snatch her up, running completely blind. She relied on her other senses, her sense of smell bringing her the horrible aroma of death, laced with the scent that the earth acquires after it rains. Her ears told her that the creature was still behind her, too close, much too close. She quickened her pace, but alas, a tree snagged her before she could get much further._

_She struggled in its grip but didn’t attempt to scream. It was useless, her voice never uttered a sound. She could feel the creature’s breath on her face. It smelled of everything putrid; death, decay, hopelessness, sorrow, anger, betrayal, sadness . . ._

_A white light shone against her eyes, and then she was falling._

 

 

* * *

She woke up.

It was dawn. She could tell by the way the light filtered through the cracks in her blinds. She reached her hand out, catching patterns of the purple shimmer along her palm and across her arm. The weight of Adrien’s presence was missing besides her, meaning she only had a short amount of time.

Being alone was both a rare blessing and a curse.

Jolting upright, she forced herself to leave the warmth of the bed. The thin nightgown that decorated her thin form was shed, leaving her bare and shivering. Walking slowly to the bathroom, her hands fumbled for the light switch. She flicked it, but nothing happened.

_Adrien. It was always Adrien._

He hated the light, and so she had to suffer in the darkness. She filled the large porcelain tub with scalding hot water, watching the steam rise with fascination. She knelt at the side and poured in the salts; all different colours and aromas. When the hit the water they sizzled a bit, but she didn’t mind. Turning off the faucet, she finally allowed herself to sink into the tub, her skin blushing from the burning temperature.

_Pure. To become pure, she needed to wash him from herself._

The water stung as she grabbed the brush, scrubbing it over herself. She made sure to get every part of her skin, cleansing it with the multitude of salts. She breathed a sigh and let herself sink under. Her skin was bright pink from all the scrubbing, but she had one last thing to do.

She held her breath.

She could almost see him, leaning over the tub. He was blurry, his figure swaying in time with the water. A smile came across her face at the thought of holding all the cards. She could hold her breath until he disappeared. Sometimes, she imagined doing so, but the thought usually left her mind as quickly as it came. The logical side of her warned her that losing her own soul was too large of a price to pay. But he was bonded to her. If she disappeared, then so did he. It was a tempting thought.

When the spots of unconsciousness started to dance across her eyes, she rose, standing in the water. A hand reached out of the tub, underneath a towel on the floor, to grab the pills. There were many of them, all different shapes and sizes and colours, mixed together in one bottle. But per usual, she never got any further.

A cold hand wrapped around her own, his face coming into her line of sight. She looked like a child getting caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

“Tsk, tsk, my darling. What are you doing?” His tone was dangerously calm, but there was an edge to it.

“Cleansing,” she replied evenly.

“Clever girl, you almost got away with it, didn’t you?” he purred, snatching up the bottle and tossing it aside. Her eyes never left his face, even as he gripped her chin. “You are mine, and I am yours. Why is that never enough for you?”

Her voice wavered as she spoke. “You aren’t real,” she insisted. “You’re imaginary. No one can see you but me.”

“That’s what the doctor says, isn’t it? But you shouldn’t be listening to her. You should listen to me,” he emphasized. “They don’t know how special we are. They don’t know that we _need_ each other. Right, my dear? You need me and I need you.”

And then he was pressing his lips against hers.

It wasn’t uncommon that they did things like that. Adrien wasn’t incredibly affectionate, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be. It was times like those when she nearly forgot that he wasn’t a real person, that he wasn’t human. He certainly felt human as their lips moved together and his hands pressed against her skin.

When he finally pulled away, a sharp-toothed grin awaited her. “See, my sweet? We’re all that we need.”

Blood ran down her lips, the crimson standing out against the pale skin. He took over her senses. He was everywhere, all that she could hear, all that she could feel. She could never escape him, and she knew as much.

The only sound was her ragged breathing. A few small rays of sunshine shone against the tiles of the floor. Water droplets slid down her body with agonising slowness. Goosebumps prickled along her porcelain skin. Water and blood alike mixed together, sliding along the cracks between the floorboards. Just mere feet away, the pill bottle lay unopened on the floor. She watched it with a nearly unbearable longing.

She felt his lips trace the skin of her neck, his fingers dancing along her back. Sharp teeth grazed her collarbone, but she never flinched. His smile was felt against her flesh as she drew in a breath.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice broken and void of all emotion, “we’re all that we need.”

**Author's Note:**

> A.n. Sooo I hope you guys liked this! Remember to leave a comment with feedback and maybe even kudos if you're interested. :) 
> 
> Also, please follow me on twitter for fangirl content @needyynasa! I love talking to readers.


End file.
